The Whanganui River is a major river in the North Island of New Zealand.
For many years it was known in some records as the Wanganui River, however the river's name officially reverted to Whanganui in 1991, according with the wishes of local iwi. Part of the reason was also to avoid confusion with the Wanganui River in the South Island. The city at the river's mouth was called Wanganui until December 2009, when the government decided that while either spelling was acceptable, Crown agencies would use the Whanganui spelling.
Read more about Whanganui River: Expanse, Tributaries, History, Taonga and Māori Land Claims
Famous quotes containing the word river:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)